


Watchful

by audreycritter



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman/Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Hidden Injuries, Platonic Hand-Holding, Sleep Deprivation, bruce is a weirdo, chill watchtower hanging out time, clark is a good friend okay, make bruce sleep 2k18, self-indulgent superbros nonsense, tw: paranoia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 09:48:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16134758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: Who has time for sleep when the whole world is dangerous?Or, Clark's shift on the Watchtower turns into another kind of watching over someone.





	Watchful

When Clark strode across the deck to take his place at the Watchtower monitors, Hal Jordan waved a tired farewell with a quick jerk of his head toward the server stack. Clark followed the motion to where only the lower half of Batman was visible. He was under one of the units, a pile of wires by his visible hip, and the faint  _scritching_  sounds of working were coming from within the bulk of machinery.

“See ya, Bats. Good chat. Always a pleasure talking to you. Fills the long, boring hours,” Hal called, rapping his knuckles on one server casing on his way out.

“Hnn,” was the only reply.

Clark swept his cape out of the way to sit down. The coffee mug in his hand was full of fresh coffee, topped with Peppermint Mocha creamer someone had left in the kitchen fridge. And there was Hal’s mug, with a mouthful of coffee left in the bottom, sitting on the one coaster. The rest were missing.

“GL, your—” Clark turned, but it was too late. Hal was gone. He grumbled good naturedly and picked up the mug in his free hand. He tilted it and his vision clouded with red, transparent haze as he heated the remainder until it steamed wildly. Within seconds it was reduced to a dry film of coffee in the bottom, and he set it on the floor to take back with him the next time to go to the kitchen.

“Morning,” he said cheerily, to the black boots and armor-plated legs. “Hal left his mug again.”

He was hoping this would get him a complaint, at the least— that, he could usually count on. Or maybe the thick and pointed silence that told him Bruce wasn’t in the mood to criticize Hal or hear anyone else do so. He vascillitated between those two moods wherever Hal was concerned and Clark still hadn’t quite figured out what was the determining factor.

All he got was another, “Hnn.”

So, one of those days.

The clinking and scratching sounds of tools continued. The pile of frayed wires at Batman’s side grew larger, and occasionally an ungloved hand would undo a compartment on the utility belt and withdraw something.

Clark watched the monitors, enjoying the quiet. He didn’t mind this part of the job. It was easier to shut out unnecessary background noise up here, for one thing. Half an hour passed. Then an hour.

Now Clark was starting to get bored.

“Have you heard from Dick recently?”

No answer. So, that was an off-limits subject today.

“Lo is in Australia for a week. I might go see her after this, surprise her. I guess it’s not much of a surprise anymore, though. Think I should take flowers?”

No answer.

Clark sighed, loud enough to make himself heard.

A booted foot dragged an inch across the floor. Another bundle of frayed wires joined the rest.

“What kind of flowers, though? She likes tulips, but I always get tulips.”

“Hnn,” came the reply.

“Yeah,” Clark swished his cold coffee around. “I’ll stick with tulips. She likes them, why mess with what works. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, right?”

“Broken,” Bruce growled. “Don’t butcher grammar for your cliche.”

“Here I thought you’d be pleased I edited out ‘ain’t,’” Clark said, glad to finally get a reply.

“If you hadn’t, I would have considered it a quotation of classic colloquialism.”

“I can’t win with you.”

“I wasn’t aware it was a contest.” There was an ear-cringing screech of metal on metal and a low swear, and then a soft pounding. Next came the groan of bending steel. Clark guessed another server casing was being pried off.

The odd  _scritch_  picked back up.

Over the next hour, it stopped and resumed a half dozen times, while Bruce ignored Clark’s other attempts to strike up conversation.

A handful of cut wires topped the growing pile and the sound stopped again. Clark considered going for more coffee and decided, with a glance at the monitors, to risk it.

“I’m going to get more coffee. Want anything?”

No answer.

Clark grabbed Hal’s mug and seconds later, was putting it in the kitchen. He jabbed the button on the machine for a single cup of coffee and rifled in the fridge for a creamer that wasn’t as sweet.

When he got back to the desk, Batman was still under the towers. Clark frowned— he’d half-expected Bruce to take over at the monitors and then greet him with that glare of his, the one he used whenever he thought people were cutting corners or being sloppy.

Suspicious, he examined the pile of wires. It didn’t seem to have grown any larger in his absence, though it was hard to tell because it was now less like a pile and more like a spreading giant slime mold of bright rubbery plastic and copper ends.

He set his coffee down.

“Batman?”

No answer.

There was a shift of the left boot.

Clark sat back down, still frowning.

Less than ten minutes later, there was an echoing  _thud_  and a growling groan, and both boots jerked like they’d touched a live electric current.

“Batman?”

This time, the “hnn,” was faintly woozy, and Clark stopped waiting and frowning and wondering. He abandoned the desk and closed a hand around one boot and tugged.

Batman slid out from beneath the servers, blinking groggily at the light. His cowl was off— Clark only just now noticed it sitting a few feet away, on its side, when he started looking.

“Hm?” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Clark exhaled. “Were you asleep?”

Bruce twisted his neck and glanced back at the spot under the servers he’d just been pulled from. “No. Maybe. Just taking a break.”

“I thought you’d been shocked, darn it,” Clark said, scowling.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Bruce said, his eyes squeezing shut for a second. His words lacked their usual definition and bite. They were floaty, a little slurred.

On instinct, Clark reached forward and felt Bruce’s forehead with the inside of his wrist. It might not have been instinct several years ago, but now he’d known Bruce for a while. He hissed between his teeth when his hand made contact.

Clark couldn’t be burned, exactly, but he could register heat and when it was abnormal.

“Dammit, Bruce, you’re burning up. Have you been like that all night?”

Rather than respond to his exclamation with an anger to match— defensive ire at the implied criticism— Bruce just craned his neck again to look at the servers. He made some sort of half-motion with his hand.

“I have to finish stripping and replacing the wires,” he said hollowly. “To make sure none of them have corroded. Two more stacks to go.”

“You shouldn’t be working at all,” Clark returned, ducking his head under to see the guts of one server exposed. “Anything left on this one?”

Bruce shook his head and made a little huff of negation. He rubbed at his face and then winced. There was a bruise blooming on his forehead.

Without hunting for tools, Clark wedged himself under the servers and popped the casing back on. When he shimmied back out, partially floating to reduce friction and pull on the cape, Bruce was sitting up with his head in his hands.

“Just two more,” he muttered. “I can do it.”

“But you won’t,” Clark said decisively. Ordering Bruce around was a risky venture but sometimes it was required. To his growing concern, Bruce didn’t argue. He didn’t move either, but the first was worrying enough.

He crouched down in front of him, evaluating before he put a hand on him again, and Bruce raised an exhausted, shattered gaze to his face. Bruce’s mouth opened like he might say something, but nothing came out.

“Where are you hurt?” Clark asked, suppressing his sigh. He was a little angry at himself for not realizing sooner.

“Ribs. Left side. Lower back. Left leg, left clavicle,” Bruce said, his shoulders slumped.

“What did you do? Stop a building with your body?” Clark joked, to bury his frustration.

“Hm? Got thrown. Croc. Alfred took care of it. Did Hal leave?”

A stab of heartache went through him, washing out the anger. It wasn’t often that Bruce literally ran himself into the ground, but he ran himself hard when he did, and everything was always justified in his head. Clark didn’t have to shout about server wires being able to wait, not like he might have years ago.

If Bruce had dragged himself up to the Watchtower, there was a good chance he had convinced himself it was a life or death situation. Contingencies on contingencies, always to avoid or prepare for the worst.

“Hal left a bit ago. Come on,” Clark said, his voice gentle. “You need sleep, Bruce.”

Bruce let Clark pull him to his feet, with a grimace marring his features. He favored his leg when Clark tugged on his elbow to get him moving across the room, and within five or six steps had accepted Clark’s arm around him to hold him up.

“Home or here?” Clark asked quietly in the hall, while Bruce leaned against him and squeezed his eyes shut. Tears shone at the corners, from fatigue or pain or both.

“Here,” Bruce mumbled after a moment. “Don’t wanna…puke after the Zeta.”

“Got it,” Clark said, leading them that way. He paused to press an intercom button on a panel on the wall. “J’onn, I need someone to cover the last half of my shift. Something personal came up.”

“Consider it done,” the speaker hummed. “I will attend to it myself.”

“Thanks,” Clark said. “I owe you.”

“Half?” Bruce said, and Clark could hear the frown in his voice. “How many hours were you…”

“Almost four,” Clark answered. Bruce staggered and Clark caught him and kept him upright. They stopped for thirty seconds, a minute. “Ready? Want me to take you?”

Bruce shook his head. “I can make it.”

He couldn’t, but Clark didn’t argue. “You’re almost there,” he said instead. “Let’s go.”

The doors to Bruce’s private quarters slid open with a soft hiss and Bruce all but collapsed onto the bed when Clark got him close enough. He forced himself to sit back up and throw most of the pieces of suit onto the floor.

“How many of these?” Clark called from the bathroom, peering at the label on a bottle of painkillers.

“All of them,” Bruce answered and Clark shot him a warning glare that he was too out of it and far away to see.

The label, upon closer inspection, had Alfred’s neat and tiny scrawl on the side, with a dosage. Clark shook out three and poured a glass of water.

It took him a moment to rouse Bruce enough. “I don’t want to have to put an IV in you,” Clark said, which finally got him to keep his eyes open long enough to accept meds and chase them with water. “You were working for a while and you’re probably dehydrated.”

“Can’t sleep,” Bruce mumbled, when Clark set the glass down on the little table next to the bed. “S’no point. Gonna wake up in twenty minutes anyway.”

“What helps?” Clark asked. The answer had varied over the years, from ‘nothing’ to ‘music’ to Bruce simply refusing to answer at all.

This time, Bruce sighed, a little angry sound. “House is too damn empty,” he grumbled, already drifting. “Everyone’s too far away.”

“That fever must be pretty high,” Clark said, standing. He undid the catches on the tops of Bruce’s boots and tugged them off. There was a small, pained whine when the left one came off. “You’re not usually this honest, and those painkillers can’t have kicked in yet.”

“Clark,” Bruce said. “I  _hate_  you sometimes.”

“I know,” Clark said, with a perfect smile. “You’ve told me. Give me your hand.”

Bruce complied and then opened his eyes to attempt a glare. It failed spectacularly, and he mostly just reminded Clark of a disgruntled kitten.

Clark wrapped his fingers around Bruce’s hand and pulled it closer, as he sat on the edge of the bed. He shoved the baselayer sleeve up on Bruce’s arm, then drew the tips of his fingers lightly across the underside of Bruce’s forearm in a lazy figure eight.

For a second, Bruce’s eyes snapped all the way open in a sudden, profound alertness. He was staring straight at Clark, the blue irises bright with fever.

“Feel bad?” Clark asked, ready to stop.

Mutely, Bruce shook his head, already fading back toward sleep. “Don’t hate you,” he did manage to huff, before he slipped beneath the surface.

“My Ma used to do this when I couldn’t sleep,” Clark said. “Have no idea why it works.”

“Hnn,” Bruce said, with a contented inflection.

Clark’s fingers didn’t still until Bruce’s breathing was deep and even. He held his hand anyway, just because he could, figuring he had another four hours on the Tower anyway.

Bruce slept soundly for all of them.


End file.
